


You Had Me At "You Want A Beer?"

by humancorn



Series: phlint [2]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: After the events of MCU Deadpool, Assasssin turned Mercenary!Clint Barton, Clint has trust issues, Emotions, F/M, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Mentions of Comic Canon!Vanessa or AKA CopyCat, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Phil is working through some shit, Set in St. Margaret's (AKA the bar in the deadpool movie), To Be Continued, Tumblr Ask Box Fic, Wade gets drunk, no happy ending, why not right
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-02
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2018-10-26 23:19:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10796850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/humancorn/pseuds/humancorn
Summary: Clint works at a bar, Phil comes in with his friends and shenanigans happen. Angst.





	1. Chance Meetings

Clint had planned on only working at St. Margaret’s for a few months, to gain intel on another assassin he had been hired to kill. He’d mercy-ed the guy (he wasn’t so bad after you got to know him), fallen in love with the bar (the atmosphere was stifling and relaxed in it’s own way), grown comfortable with the patrons (a bunch of big lugs who had had their hearts, minds, or bodies broken and were not too dissimilar to himself). So, as it stood, he’d been here for 2 years now. Long enough to see friends and enemies die, long enough to see the birth and death of love between strangers, long enough to dabble in mercenary work himself and forgo high-class assassin work almost altogether. All it was was rich dicks getting back at each other by killing people who had wronged them, and the ambiguity of what he was actually doing had been taxing. With merc work he could pick and choose, vanilla bartending job aside, causes and cases he decided were right enough to fight for. He’d take the money at the end of the day, of course, because it was work, but it had a certain pride to it that he had only experienced one other time in his life -- after his first solo-act applause in circus when he was 12. As it was, he was content, and that was an entirely new and surprising feeling he was not ready to give up any time soon.

“Hey, Clint,” Weas tapped his shoulder, “you see that guy over there?” Clint looked over to the corner of the bar, and beyond the pool table, in the very dark back corner, sat a small man with dirt-brown hair. Wade knocked another shot back and looked over his shoulder.

“Looks like that shithead with those business cards.” Wade smirked, “Y’should mess with him, Arrow, seems like your type.”

“My _type_.”

“Yeah. Bookish, hard-ass, Always-On-The-Job type. You’d make very mean looking babies.” Wade smirked, knocking back another shot, looking entirely disinterested. “Plain, boring, mean babies. Nothin’ like the Vanessa and I. Gonna have cool immortal, power-copying babies.”

Weas took the shot glass from him when he set it down and placed it with the dirty dishes, “Okay, time for that to stop,” he turned to Clint, “Seriously, if he’s with some weird organization we should get him out of here.” A pause, “And by we I mean _you_.”

“Fine. You want me to go talk to him?” Clint asked, throwing the dishrag over his shoulder.

Weas shrugged, “Yeah, I guess.”

Clint rounded the bar, eyes focused on the booth in the back as he strode over to talk to the mysterious man. Now, Clint hadn’t discovered St. Margaret’s until after what Weas and Wade called, “The Incident”, but he was pretty sure he understood from context what had happened. Getting mixed up in things he didn’t entirely understand was Clint basic everyday pastime, so he empathized with Wade.

“Hey, buddy, you want to order anything?” The archer placed a hand on the table, drawing the man’s attention.

“No, thank you, just waiting for some colleagues,” the man said, eyeing Clint, “But they seem to be late. If you’d like, you could join me, drinks on me.”

Clint stared at him for a second, trying to get the jist of whether this proposal was sketchy and would leave him mutilated like Wade, or if it was just hella fuckin’ gay. End result: a little weird, but his eyes said gay so Clint sat down opposite of him.

“Clint,” he extended his hand and the other man took it, introduced himself as Phil, they shared a drink and after 30 minutes of what Clint deemed mindless chitchat, Phil’s friends finally showed up and Clint bid his farewell, retreating behind the counter, at the begrudging acceptance of Weas.

“Just a cool guy waitin’ for his drinkin’ buddies, Weas, calm your tits.”

Ten weeks later, Phil had become quite the regular. Started out with fridays at five in the afternoon and then started coming in more and more, friends or not; morning, noon, night; lunch or beer, it didn't matter. And as he came in more, there seemed to be more “anonymous gifts” being left for the “cute bartender”. Weas had tried to claim them a few times and had been subsequently shot down, as little notes were then included, waxing poetic about Clint in detail. A little odd, but sweet all the same.

Phil had also started sitting at the bar on the occasional Tuesday or Wednesday night, instead of hiding away in the back corner. Whiskey on the rocks, hard apple cider, old wine, new wine, straight vodka, and depending on the mood, Clint would drink with him, sit down and let Phil vent vaguely to him, because of course everything he did was classified. He was that kind of guy: professional, By-The-Books, etc. Everything Wade had named off and then some, and Wade had been right -- Phil was exactly his type. Right down to the cute-ass way he would smile every time he saw Clint coming his way or the way he could down five shots of Absolut without so much as flinching one facial muscle. Rough and cold around the edges with a smile that could melt even the hardest of mercenaries.

And so when, one night, about a year after this had all begun, Phil had come in, already tipsy off his ass and sat down at that same back corner booth, Clint was taken aback. Had something happened? Something bad, horrible, terrible? Something to knock calm, cool, and collected badass Phil off kilter? Phil waved him over after a few minutes and asked for some sort of fancy imported beer and told Clint to grab something for himself and come sit back down. On the walk to and from the bar Clint’s mind ran through a million possibilities, none of which seemed to be good things. He handed Phil his beer and flopped into the other side of the  booth, head resting in his hands. It was subtle, but Phil looked sad. A bit of downturned lip, a horrid deepness in his eyes.

“Clinton Francis Barton,” Phil started, and Clint’s eyes widened, he’d never mentioned his full name, “A little less than a year ago, when I first came to this bar, I had been tasked with detaining you and bringing you back to my organization.”

Clint’s face dropped, and he could tell Phil noticed, a sharp intake of air and his eyes closed, his face looking more and more pained each second.

“I had planned to gain your trust and then catch you off guard, but...I...couldn’t. I told my higher ups that it was just taking more time than usual, you were hard to read and even harder to talk to, and they believed me, and that gave me time.”

“ _Time_?” Clint bit his tongue, heart clenching at the thought of Weas’ future, ‘I told you so’s’.

“Time,” Phil paused, held out his hand for Clint to take and Clint continued to sit how he was, unmoving, “Time to figure out how I felt, how I would go about telling you, how I would get you out of here.”

“I don’t want to get out of here, Phil,” Clint leaned back, crossed his arms, “I don’t quite follow. Were you planning on detaining me if we, what, I don’t know, stayed friends?”

“Clint, no--”

“I think I’m done here.” He turned out of the booth, striding back to the back room, where no one could see him. Weas snickered on his way past him, and asked if he wanted him to kick Phil out. Clint stopped, thought for a second, and shook his head before continuing back to the back room. A few hours later Weas brought him a cup of tea, and then a few hours after that he and Wade joined him in the back room, bottle of cheap window-shine vodka in hand. He drank, and drank, woke up the next morning and didn’t know where he was, though he hadn’t moved in the night.


	2. Eyes Up; Face Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The door creaked open, and he stepped in, only to find that no one was in his apartment, which was seemingly more unsettling than if there actually had been a person waiting for him in the shadows. He’d found a note, written in bright-red sharpie on his fridge.
> 
> “Eyes up, face down.”
> 
> Too cryptic to be Phil, he knew. He didn’t bother trying to make sense of it, chose to throw it away instead. But he slept in the vents that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I never intended on continuing this, but here we are. Have slightly OOC everyone, a lot of weird conspiracy theories being thrown about willy-nilly, and Clint being the human disaster of a danger-seeker he is.

Phil showed up still, same time every week as he had been. The longing stare boring into Clint’s back subsided into a sad stare out the window once Clint had made it pretty clear he was not going anywhere _near_ Phil. Weas or one of his other co-workers handled his table, and the anonymous gifts that still persisted were either given to Weas or a donation center, depending on what it was.

 

Clint had also noticed a shadowy figure lurking around his apartment building, and decided to ignore it, but carry his old hunting knife around in his boot anyway. Part of him hoped it was Phil, though, and not the unnamed organization he worked for, because he imagined Phil would be easier to recognize and take down.

 

One night, he found his door unlocked as he returned to his apartment, and against his better judgement, he slipped the knife from his boot and pushed the door open, fight-ready. The door creaked open, and he stepped in, only to find that no one was in his apartment, which was seemingly more unsettling than if there actually had been a person waiting for him in the shadows. He’d found a note, written in bright-red sharpie on his fridge.

 

_“Eyes up, face down.”_

Too cryptic to be Phil, he knew. He didn’t bother trying to make sense of it, chose to throw it away instead. But he slept in the vents that night.

 

Phil showed up at the bar the next day, still in that back booth, and Clint could see the fear in his eyes, despite the attempt to try to hide it, as he walked past. He wondered, because he was a curious son-of-a-bitch, what could have put that there, set that fear in the usually stone-cold man’s face.

 

He could feel Phil staring at him again, glanced over and Phil averted his gaze quickly, as if he were a school boy trying to hide his crush from the person he liked. Clint sighed and told Weas he was taking a dinner break, picked up two beers for himself, and sauntered over to the booth in the corner. The other man averted his gaze as Clint approached, but gestured for him to sit down just as well. Clint offered him the second beer, a beer he knew Phil didn’t like, and Phil took it. Fingers briefly brushing fingers, and Clint would pretty much see how hard Phil tried to resist the urge to flinch away from it _. Amusing, honestly_ , he thought.

 

“I found a note in my apartment,” Clint began, studying Phil’s response as the other man closed his eyes and took in a long breath, “It was cryptic. Don’t know who it’s from. But, you seemed pretty perturbed the day after I found it, so I figure it may be somethin’ to do with you.”

 

Phil seemed to be staring past him, though Clint couldn’t tell if he was focused on the booth-wood behind his head or something going on past it.

 

“I’m not lookin’ to be caught up in any more games, Phil.” Phil’s eyes jolted to stare into his own, and Clint was glad to have his attention back, “So I’m here to end it. Cease and desist. Or I’ll have to kick your ass out of this bar.” Clint sighed and he could see the crinkle at the sides of his eyes, the tired, worn look that he gave was a bit unsettling. Like delving into a world of unknown.

 

“There was someone in your apartment.” That was all. Not a question, a clear statement. Like he already knew. Of course he did. “I should say, there have been _people_ in your apartment.”

 

“What?”

 

“I missed the note. Slipped my mind.”

 

“Phil—”

 

“I’ve been trying. I know…you probably don’t, you probably didn’t want…me hanging around and looking out for you. You can handle yourself. I know that, it’s why I was originally sent here for you. But, I’ve been…removing people from your apartment for a few weeks now.”

 

“Removing people? What the hell does that mean?”

 

“Intruders? People sent to collect you, because I couldn’t.” Phil’s eyes refocused behind him, staring off into the distance, and the downturn of his mouth said everything,

 

“You defected.” Clint’s tone was unapologetic, with a tinge of mocking. Honestly, he was starting to feel like Nat, and not in a good way.

 

“I’d been thinking about it for a while, you know. It—this—wasn’t just because of you. I just don’t want you to be taken down, not given a chance or choice in the matter, all because I couldn’t do my job.” He glanced at Clint, held his gaze for a solid 10 seconds and then refocused.

 

“Phil, I have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about. You’re either going to explain or I will go back to the bar and have Wade deal with you.”

 

“Clint, I don’t have time to tell you everything, or believe me, I would,” He leaned in close, grabbing Clint by the shirt collar and making him lean in as well. Clint could feel Phil’s lips softly against his ear, “I am going to leave, I need you to follow me after waiting 10 minutes. Meet me on the corner of Bar and Main.”  And then Phil kissed him, desperate, needy, and Clint nearly flinched back in response, but held out. He could feel the importance, the significance of what was going on, in the slight tremble of Phil’s hand on his shirt collar. A ploy? A trick to get him outside, into a van, blindfolded and taken to who knows where?

 

He decided to trust his gut, make a quick decision to take off without telling Weas or the others. If it was really that important, it was better to not have them get involved. Clint edged out the back door, left his coat on the coatrack and his phone in his locker. Flipped his clock-in sheet to the side so Weas would know something was going _on_ , but it wasn’t something he could tell him about, and he left. Corner of Bar and Main in 10 minutes, eh? _Maybe this could be interesting_ , he thought, as he made his way through the array of alleyways.  


	3. it's all alright, yeah, it's all alriiiiight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Action! Espionage! Questionable Romance!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Boy oh Boy it took me a long time to finish this not-very-great chapter!

Five minutes in, two blocks from his destination, and he noticed someone was following him.

“Wade.” Clint sighed, and turned to see Deadpool very obviously hiding behind a lamppost. He was very clearly visible, and decked out in full regalia.

 

“Shhh! I’m following someone.” Wade answered, and peeked around the lamppost.

 

“Go back to the bar.”

 

“No.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“No,” He stepped out from behind the pole and poked Clint very pointedly in the chest, “You’re in trouble.”

 

“Am I?” Clint leaned back, hand reflexively going to his back, only to find no quiver, no arrows.

 

“That’s right, Buster Brown. You forgot your weapon.” Deadpool took a step forward, a visible smirk showing through his mask, “And we became good acquaintances by the end of the Deadpool vs. Hawkeye (2014) comic run, so I feel a little personally responsible for you. Plus, Weas would probably start charging me if I tried to drink an entire bottle of Absolut after hours with only _him_.” 

 

“ _What?_ ” Clint paused for a second, disregarded what had just been said, and turned to walk away, “I don’t need you on my conscience, Pool.”

 

Wilson walked lankily beside him, “Oh, come off it, Baby-face. I know you like me,” Clint turned to see him twirling a trick arrow in his hand, “I always plan ahead.” Wade winked at him, and he begrudgingly took his quiver and bow from him.   

 

“Fine.” He checked his phone, 3 minutes left until he had to meet with Coulson. Not enough time to do a full evasive maneuver and lose Wade at this point, not that it would be an easy task if he did have the time, anyway. “But you’re flank. I call the shots, and you can’t kill anyone we see on the street.” He paused, “At least, not yet.”

 

“Yay!!!” Deadpool cheered and fell into step beside Clint as they made their way toward the meet-up point. They rounded the last corner, only a minute to spare. Phil was nowhere to be seen, and Clint hoped he’d pop up at some point, so he didn’t have to spend a while looking for him. 30 seconds, 45, and he could practically feel Wade growing restless beside him. Plus, people were starting to give them weird looks. Nothing was going on, and a guy dressed head-to-toe in red-black leather was standing on a street corner next to a guy with a decent-sized bow, and two quivers of arrows. Clint got the feeling that if Phil didn’t show up soon, he would be talking to the cops instead of figuring out why people were breaking into his apartment.

 

A hand brushed across his waist, and it was distinctly too small to be Wade’s. Phil circled around him, and brushed his lips against Clint’s before pretending to lick the shell of his ear. Clint smirked, and grabbed Phil’s hip hard enough to bruise.

 

“Well hello there, handsome.” Clint glanced over at Wade, who was, to his credit, actually looking around and not staring at them.

 

“I didn’t expect you to bring anyone along,” Phil whispered against the skin of Clint’s neck.

 

“Let’s just say, he’s insurance if things start to go south. I’m sure you know who he is.”

 

“Of course.” Phil stiffened a bit, “I’m sorry for being so…close. We’ve got to play up the ‘lovestruck fools’ aspect for, well, I suppose insurance. If we get caught before, it’ll be less complicated. You’ll get a chance to join, you won’t just be taken out without an option.”

 

“And you?”

 

“I’m dead either way.”  

 

“Alright, sounds good.” Clint gave a wicked smirk and let go of Phil’s hip. He smiled, and backed Phil up against the wall, effectively shielding them from view behind Wade. “What’s your plan?” Clint asked, still too suspicious to blindly trust him, but at least curious enough to play along for a little while longer.

 

“We get out of here, get to one of my old safe houses. Meet up with a mutual friend of ours and hopefully…” Phil pauses, his eyes briefly focusing on something behind them, only to look Clint in the eyes again a few milliseconds later, “We need to move.” Phil grabbed his hand and began walking down the street calmly, and Clint could hear Wade following up behind them, absently singing Despacito.

Clint sighed and let himself be dragged along, trying to come up with some semblance of an escape plan if things got bad quickly.

“ _Do you know Dutch_?” Phil asked him, in Dutch. Clint almost laughed, almost. How ridiculous was this?

“ _Yes_ ,” He said, also in Dutch, “ _Of course, doesn’t everyone?”_

“ _We’re being followed_.” Phil said, “ _We’re going to make a sharp turn at the end of this alley, run into the back door of a nightclub and hide in the crowd. Hopefully your friend can keep up.”_

 _“Will do, buckaroo!”_ Wade laughed, and flanked them, “ _I’ll keep them busy to give you guys a head start._ ”

“ _Wade_ -“ Clint started, but Wade cut him off.

“ _Shut it, BirdBrain. I’m doing a nice thing for you. Accept it._ ” Wade stopped, but yelled back to them, “Now have a happy life with that handsome boy of yours! Crazy kids! What lovebirds, am I right?” Clint could see Wade draw his guns just before they rounded the corner. Phil basically shoved him into the night club door, and followed, shutting it tightly behind them.

“If he dies, you’re going to have to send flowers to Weas and somehow stop Copycat from literally murdering you.” Clint shouted at Phil as they snaked their way through the crowd. Phil did not reply, but his grip tightened on Clint’s wrist. Finally, after 15 gruelling minutes of being surrounded by sweaty bodies, they hit the clearing on the other side of the floor. Phil was quick to get them out of the open and speed walked them both down a hallway and into a dimly lit room, only to go out another door at the other side of the room, go out into _another_ hallway, and knock on what seemed to be a blank wall. Either Phil was really losing it or it was a _really good_ fake. Phil said something in Russian that Clint didn’t quite catch and the wall began to slide up into the ceiling, closing quickly behind them once they entered. Well, if this was a trap, Clint was _royally_ fucked now. A lamp flickered on above them, and a figure stepped into the light with them, graceful and neatly silent.

“Long time no see, Clint.” Clint knew that voice--

“ ** _Natasha_**?”

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, whoopsie-daisies, that's a bit of a cliff hanger right there.


End file.
